Full Department of Labor Report on weekly claims

[AllentownJake]

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm

The media will report the first paragraph, smart people who actually want to know what is going on in the world, will read the unadjusted numbers. Give you a hint, claims actually increased last week.

[AllentownJake]

1. Awww

Did the rainbow bright squad get upset because the report actually shows the opposite of what the media is reporting?

[onenote]

2. there is a reason for seasonal adjustments

Yes, the non seasonally adjusted number of initial claims went up last week compared to the week before. But if you check previous years, you'll see that the unadjusted claims figure for the week before thanksgiving is, more often than not, higher than the week before. Why? One reason is that by the time you hit the third week in November, a lot of seasonal construction work has ended so unemployment claims spike.

BTW, if you compare this past week with the results one year ago, you'll see that the number of first time claims, both seasonally adjusted and nonseasonally adjusted has dropped by more than 60,000 (NSA) and more than 50,000 (SA). I suspect that smart people who actually want to know what is going on in the world take a look at those numbers.

[Techn0Girl]

3. What does the number of first time claims dropping actually mean?

Does it mean that less people are out of work or does it mean that so many people have been out of work that les and less are eligible to make a first time claim?

Seriously - what are poeple saying the figures actually mean?

[DrToast]

5. Here's how you use this info

First time initial claims refers to new people being laid off. And it only counts new people filing for unemployment. They also track people who are already receiving unemployment benefits, but that statistic is less useful. It's less useful because it's not as accurate and because it tends to follow initial claims. In other words, if you're trying to gauge the direction of the labor market based on unemployment claims, first time claims will improve before the total claims.

So why are first time claims useful? A few reasons:

-It's timely--every week a new set of numbers are released.
-They're not estimates. They are seasonally adjusted, but it's not a forecast. It's an actual count of first time claims.
-They're a good leading indicator of total employment. First time claims only tell you the pace of firing. It doesn't tell you the pace of hiring. You have to wait for the monthly report from the labor department for information on hiring. HOWEVER, the first time claims provides a hint of where the hiring numbers are heading.

As first time claims cross below 400,000 per week, we'll likely begin to see net hiring in the labor force.

[Techn0Girl]

6. Thank you both for the context :)

[AllentownJake]

7. My problem is with the "seasonal adjustment"

68,000 more people filed claims than last week, seeing that the construction industry has gotten their ass kicked all year, do you think that the traditional seasonal adjustment makes sense?

The actual number of claims was 80,000 more than the seasonal adjustment, and judging by reports on http://www.dailyjobcuts.com/ a shit load of the recent layoffs are manufacturing, healthcare, education, and state/municipal workers.

[AllentownJake]

4. There are less layoffs right now than there were when shit was really

hitting the fan, shocking.

Housing starts collapsed in September. There wasn't much of an industry to lay-off.

http://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

These don't look like construction jobs that were going away....looks to me a lot of municipal jobs. I know the announcements are lagging from the actual job loss so go back to October.